Artesia week 15

This picture has a funny story. On Monday there was this really big storm rolling into town, and this one cloud in particular looked extra dark and menacing. We went and knocked on this one guy's door, and by the time we turned around the cloud looked like it was getting lower to the ground. We're thinking, "Oh dang, this thing is about to turn into a tornado!" As we were saying that to each other, the town's tornado warning starts sounding and we are freaking out! Then we realized that it was 6:30 on Monday when they always test the alarm, and it turned out to be nothing. But for 30 seconds there we were thinking we were about to die. It was great.

And here we have the famous Artesia Bulldog. We had to capture this picture late at night when no one was around. After taking the picture, I realize I should have been doing a "bulldog face" to match the statue. Dang. Oh well. 

Elder Young, Elder Van Voris, Elder Nowland and I in their car after church.

got Elder Nowland coming in from taking out the trash and the light looked legit behind him in the doorway, so I got a picture of it.

Elder Nowland biking off into the Sunset.

HEY! Thanks for all the prayers! I think all missionaries need as many prayers as possible. That is super great that Rich was baptized! I was going to ask about him!  It sounds like Meagan is having fun. From all the e-mails I get from my other missionary friends, it appears that mostly everyone is doing great! You know what else is weird? I got an e-mail from a sister in my MTC group this week that's about her giving the date of her homecoming talk, only a couple months away. That is pretty crazy. This morning for my studies I looked up "Happiness" in the topical guide. I found lots of great things about how the scriptures say someone can be happy. I would recommend it as a study for ya'll too. I don't want to spoil the fun of the study, but here are some of the things I found out about how to be happy: serve the poor, take correction from the Lord, trust in the Lord, endure, obey the commandments, learn wisdom, and don't condemn yourself.

This week there were about 100 people at church. Great news about Sonya! She keeps reading the Book of Mormon. We started her from the beginning and she has now read all of 1st and 2nd Nephi! She is doing fantastic, and we are seeing her tomorrow. We plan on helping her to quit smoking. One thing I noticed: it is often harder for people to hear the whispers of the Holy Ghost when they are not keeping the big commandments like the word of wisdom or the law of chastity. We saw Cassy once this week. We are just having a really hard time meeting with her. I believe that we could fairly easily resolve all her concerns as long as we could consistently see her and get the spirit into her life. But when we get one hour once a week and the devil gets 24 hours every other day, then it can be very difficult to make solid progress. As for Craig and Barbara, we've essentially had to drop them. We'll go by one more time this week, but Craig for some reason doesn't like us, and he is tearing down Barbara who initially was SUPER excited and loved our lesson (they're not married. There's another testament to me of keeping the law of chastity. If they weren't living together then Barbara would have a million times better chance at salvation. But Craig is just dragging her down).

Not too much left to report. Ryan was at church on Sunday. He hasn't smoked the last few days. Keep up the prayers for him on that. I want to end my thoughts this week on a scripture that every missionary knows, but one that over the course of the last few days I have seen in a different light. D&C4:4 "For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul." Of course, my purpose as a missionary is to bring others unto Christ. Yet, according to this famous missionary scripture here, I am also laying up in store for myself. I am bringing salvation to my own soul as well. I need all the forgiveness and divine aid that I can get, so if by being a missionary I can get more of that help, then that's exactly what I need to be doing. Honestly, I think I have taught more people about the restoration and the prophet Joseph Smith here in Artesia than anywhere else. Why is that? Nobody seems to want to listen, so we have to keep moving on to anyone we can find. As least I am raising a warning voice. And we are doing a very good job at that. No one can say we haven't been working hard. On that note, I love you mom! I love you dad! I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney!